Tummy Troubles

A few weeks back, we started to introduce formula into Charlotte's diet, knowing that my freezer stock of breastmilk would only last so long. We started with a bottle a day, just to give her a taste for what her future held! Well, I started to notice that after her formula bottles, she was really squirmy and it was really hard to feed her for the rest of the day. Remember that terrible day we had on her 2 month birthday??? Thats about the time that we started formula. Now, we haven't had more of those days, but its been obvious that she's uncomfortable.

Well, last week I started to notice some small "specks" of blood in her diapers. We're talking specks--but they were there and that was enough to get me a little anxious, especially considering the fact that she is on both a blood thinner and aspirin. I called Dr. Sami's office and he suggested that we make an appointment with Dr. Nanton, a pediatric gastroenterologist (just what we needed, another doctor!) Long story short, he thinks that Charlotte has a milk/soy protein intolerance, despite the fact that she had been tolerating breastmilk. She's now drinking a special formula called Elecare (in addition to breastmilk) that is already broken down into amino acids so that it is more tolerable for her.

Fast forward to today....

We've been doing breastmilk + Elecare since Monday afternoon and all of a sudden there is blood in her first 4 diapers of the day. Not just "specks," but noticeable blood. They had told me that the blood could hang around for a week or so, but that it should improve. This was definitely NOT an improvement! I called Dr. Nanton's office and their suggestion is to cut out all breastmilk to see if that helps. We're also going in for a barium enema tomorrow morning at 8 just to make sure that there isn't anything going on in that belly of hers. Hopefully a diet of straight Elecare will be the answer, but we agree that its best to rule out any possibilities!

Big prayers our direction...